While client outreach has certainly evolved to become digital-first, that doesn’t mean that traditional methods for contacting your sphere and staying top of mind have all become outdated. 

In fact, today’s commercial real estate professionals can boost the visibility of their business while creating premier client experiences by leveraging some of the tried-and-true lead follow-up strategies of the past. 

Sometimes, it can be as simple as picking up the phone and having a conversation. In other cases, incorporating technology can improve the efficiency — and effectiveness — of old-school outreach methods. 

Let’s take a look at some of the old-school lead follow-up tactics that are still useful in 2022 and beyond. 

#1. Send Cards and Gifts for Special Occasions

Does one of your top clients have a birthday coming up? Or, is there a holiday around the corner? A great way to nudge your sphere and personally engage with specific prospects is to send out cards for special occasions.

For general holidays, you can send out cards to your CRM database contacts. For some clients, you might want to send out paper cards in the mail. Or, you may want to automate the entire process by sending digital cards. Perhaps you might want to create a digital graphic that can be attached to a bulk email outreach, wishing your entire database a happy holiday. 

Don’t forget to include a light call to action prompting recipients to get in touch with your team if they need any commercial real estate assistance or advice in the future. 

For your special clients, you might want to send out personalized outreaches during special times of the year. If you have birthdays and anniversaries marked in the client’s CRM contact, you can easily set a reminder to send out a card, email, or make a phone call around the special event. 

If you’re sending a paper card in the mail, you might consider including a thoughtful gift — like flowers, baked goods from a local small business, or a bag of coffee beans. This can be an easy and quick way to show your clients that you care about them and are remembering them at important times of the year. 

#2. Send Automated Emails to Follow Up

Following up with your clients and prospects is a critical old-school engagement strategy. In the past, this might have looked like a phone call or handwritten note to each person you need to follow up with. Today’s agents can save time and effort by streamlining the task using their CRM and email marketing tools. 

Automating your follow-up emails to clients will allow you to make sure that you’re hitting the right number of outreaches to potentially increase conversion and stay relevant with past clients to possibly secure referrals or repeat business opportunities.

To keep your business top of mind, you can prepare and schedule customized emails to be periodically sent to the different prospect categories in your CRM. By tagging your CRM prospects based on their position in the sales funnel — either a past client, hot lead, or cold lead — as well as their transaction interests — prospective buyer, seller, or seeking leasing opportunity — you can easily create a few emails that can be sent in bulk to a large audience. 

For example, you can create a periodic outreach email for each category in your CRM with specific messaging curated to the needs of that group. Then, you can use your automated email tool to schedule the email delivery to match the right messaging to the right people. 

If you’d like to follow up with a specific client after a meeting or phone call, you can still leverage your automated email tools and CRM. By logging key data from the transaction into the client’s CRM contact, you can keep track of important points and set reminders for email and text throughout the deal’s developments. You can also use email templates to prepare emails so you can save time when sending out a follow-up review of calls and meetings. 

#3. Create Custom Presentations, Reports, and Marketing Materials

Whether you’re leading a meeting with clients or simply want to send out an informational report, it’s still a good idea to come prepared with professional collateral materials. 

In the past, you’d have to create these items by hand. Today, you can leverage digital templates to save time. To help you and your business shine, RealNex’s complete suite of commercial real estate software provides helpful customizable templates for creating a wide array of reports and marketing materials. All materials can be customized, branded, and adjusted to match your brand visuals. 

To learn more about what tools the RealNex suite offers, click here. For more commercial real estate tips and advice, explore the RealNex Blog.